September 2011

And: VENICE 2011. The Fifty-Fourth Venice Biennale—curator Bice Curiger’s “ILLUMInations“—aims to move beyond the usual art-world name game, proposing instead an investigation of knowledge, reason, historicity, and vision. Artforum asked seven critics, curators, and art historians to take stock of the Biennale and the projects surrounding it, in order to decide whether these shows rose above the roster or are ultimately just another who’s who.

· Claire Bishop surveys “ILLUMInations” and asks whether the exhibition’s championing of Enlightenment values, in the wake of a decade of globalized biennials, constitutes an innovation or a retrenchment:“‘ILLUMInations‘ feels like a beautifully judged roundup of recent art, but one bereft of propositions for the future.”

· Francesco Bonami bemoans the political underbelly of the Italian pavilion’s curatorial process:“The Venice Biennale may be the mother of all biennials, but it is also their Jekyll and Hyde.”

· John Kelsey scans Bjarne Melgaard‘s Venice installation and e-flux‘s Art Basel project, assessing the fate of the open work in relation to pedagogy, violence, and disease:“Every ‘Utopia Station’ eventually begins to dream of its own aesthetic Columbine.”

· Also: Following R. H. Quaytman‘s exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel and the Neuberger Museum, art historian and critic Paul Galvez immerses us in one of the few detailed readings of the artist’s stunningly precise and profound tableaux.

· David Joselit defines “the art of witnessing”—a mode of viewing typified by the recent installations of Thomas Hirschhorn, where towering material confrontation demands that we question our instinct for image consumption.

· Yve-Alain Bois has a close encounter with two paintings by Martin Barré that manifest the late French artist’s radical turn circa 1960.

Exhibitions, symposia and teaching positions at art schools world wide

Thank You!

Subscription pending. Your email subscription is almost complete. An email has been sent to the email address you entered. In this email is a confirmation link. Please click on this link to confirm your subscription.